Consummation
by KADH
Summary: It was an ordinary Tuesday Afternoon. Well almost. A bit of mischief in the kitchen leads to a major shift in the nature of Grissom and Sara's relationship. A continuation of "Devoutly to be Wished." Post season five, circa June 2005.


**Consummation**

It was an ordinary Tuesday afternoon. Well, almost.

Besides, sometimes the most extraordinary things happen on the most ordinary of days, and begin in the most ordinary of ways.

A bit of mischief in the kitchen leads to a major shift in the nature of Grissom and Sara's relationship.

_A continuation of "Devoutly to be Wished." Post season five, circa June 2005. _

_*******_

"But I don't want to anymore."

For a long moment, Grissom's words simply hung in the silence between them. That is until the dish Sara had been in the process of washing clanked noisily into the basin and startled them both back into life.

Slowly, she turned, her eyes still wide and her mouth slightly open at this sudden display of frankness. For his part, Grissom attempted to give her a reassuring smile as he took up her hands, which were still warm and damp from the dishwater. He narrowed the space between them, leaned in and barely brushed his lips against hers as he asked, in a voice suddenly almost husky in timbre, "Do you have anywhere you have to be this afternoon?"

"Not unless you call me into work early," she replied.

"Good."

His smile widened and she couldn't help but return the grin at the realization that neither of them had any intention of rushing this moment, a moment that the two of them had long longed for.

But when Sara rose onto her tiptoes to further deepen their next kiss, she felt herself go slightly weak at the knees. Not wanting to break contact, however, she sought to steady herself by leaning back against the counter, but her palms slipped on the damp ledge and splashed into the water.

"You all right?" Grissom asked, having instinctively grasped her firm by the waist. She could tell that he was trying hard to keep his face solicitous, although it was rather readily apparent that he was finding it difficult to hide the flicker and hint of a bemused chuckle.

"What is it about us and kitchens?" she asked, shaking her head in consternation.

"Maybe we should do this somewhere..." he began.

"A little less wet?" she laughed.

"More comfortable, but yes," Grissom countered. Sara nodded.

*******

Noticing as he bent to flick on the bedside lamp that Sara was still standing in the doorway to his bedroom, Grissom teased, "Want to go through the drawers first, dear?"

"Maybe later," she replied and closed the door behind her. They met each other halfway and Grissom brushed that one stray strand back behind her ear and kissed her gently. She rubbed the back of her hand along the coarse line of his beard. He took it up and pressed her palm to his lips.

She shivered.

"Cold?" he questioned and then as if just registering it, "You're still soaking wet. Why don't I get you a towel?"

Before he could move to go, she held him fast. "No," she replied. Although when she placed his hands along the hem of her damp cotton top, she did not remove her own. As he met her eyes, Grissom couldn't recall ever seeing her look so shy. He couldn't fathom why.

"Sara?" he asked, but when she didn't answer, he leaned in and repeated what she had said to him earlier, "It's just me."

"I guess you aren't the only one worried about being a disappointment," she admitted reluctantly.

"Not possible," he smiled, and she did in return and wound her arms around his neck and kissed him appreciatively.

As he pulled away, Grissom took a deep breath. He had to say it, before things moved any further.

It was with tenderness, and not uncertainty, that he stammered, "Sara, it's... It's okay anytime... If... It's okay to say stop."

Sara stared at him, again bewildered and not sure why he was telling her this, but then she remembered what he had told her that night he had first brought her to his townhouse for dinner. Then he had been reticent and apprehensive and worried about hurting her because...

"Oh, God," she sighed and sank onto the edge of the bed.

Grissom sat down beside her. "Sara, I'm sor..." he began, but she put a finger to his lips and shook her head.

She drew his face towards her until her cheek rested against his and nuzzled it slightly with her own. She closed her eyes before slowly whispering into his ear, carefully enunciating each word so there could be no possible misunderstanding, "It was never like that" and held him close for a long time.

"Okay?" she asked, giving him a rather watery smile when she finally withdrew.

He nodded and pulled a handkerchief from his pants pocket. "Maybe we should..." he offered uneasily, thinking that as he had likely spoiled the moment that they should just return to the kitchen. He could make them some tea and they could talk.

But Sara shook her head at this suggestion. Instead, she reached up and carefully removed his glasses and placed them on the bedside table behind her before curling her hand over the bearded roughness of his cheek and stroking the bare skin just beneath his eyes with her thumb.

Grissom's eyes lit up at that touch, one that was so reminiscent of the first time she had touched him. While he had always felt that there had been a undercurrent of attraction flowing between them ever since they first met all those years ago, in that moment in the alley when she had reached out to ostensibly brush chalk dust from his face, it had become something far more -- a spark.

Even though it had been a simple gesture, because Grissom had lived most of his life not touching or being touched to the point that he had almost forgotten how much being so could move him, that brief contact had served to shock him out of his perfectly anesthetized existence. It was then that his thoughts of Sara became more than just idle curiosity or fantasy; then when he realized this thing with her was different, something far different from anything and everything else he had ever known. He just hadn't known what to do about it, hadn't for the longest time, and sometimes still didn't, but right now for perhaps the first time in his life, he no longer cared about having to know.

*******

Ever so slowly, Sara's hand slid from his cheek and along his neck, before coming to rest for a moment on the narrow patch of exposed skin his partially unbuttoned shirt revealed. Grissom was too intent on nuzzling her neck to do much more than chuckle softly when her fingers began fumbling with the rest of the buttons. And this time when her name buzzed against her skin, he wasn't asking her to stop.

His own fingers just barely edged beneath the hem of her tank top.

"Tease," she murmured.

"Never," he replied. "I have every intention of finishing what I start."

The "Oh," she was about to utter was cut off by a deep, heady sort of kiss.

Sara didn't bother with the last of the buttons; she merely tugged the still damp fabric over his head before her own shirt joined his on the floor. She drew him to her and together they sank back onto the mattress.

They simply lay there face to face for a while. Grissom gave her a small smile as he reached out to smooth her now unruly hair.

It was a long, lingering, tender sort of wooing that happened next, and not just some hurried tussle. While it was obvious that neither of them wanted that, Sara knew she should have realized from all the years they had known one another, that Gil Grissom never rushed anything, nor did anything by halves.

When his hands caressed her, it was as if he couldn't get enough of the feel of her beneath his fingertips and she gasped, surprised at the paradoxical strength and gentleness that lay in those hands. Then as her own fingers began to trace the hard line of his spine, Grissom let out a low, deep, almost involuntary groan that was honestly perhaps the most arousing sound Sara had ever heard, and one she couldn't wait to hear again. She began to alternate between using the softness of just the tips of her fingers and hardness of her short nails and was rewarded by the deep inhale of breathe and the feel of his arms tightening around her. He buried another low, rumbling moan into her hair.

For a time, they were quietly intertwined like that. Then Grissom pulled away and gently eased her onto her stomach. Sara found that she couldn't quite suppress her amusement at discovering that he wasn't exactly adept at the removal of certain feminine undergarments. But the mirth quickly morphed into a contented sigh at the warm exhale of breath and press of lips upon her skin as he placed kisses down her back. She practically purred with the pleasure of it.

"Grissom," she was barely able to get out, the two syllables of his name elongated and breathy, but then abruptly cut off by an unexpected giggle.

"What?" she asked more than a little confused at why he had suddenly stopped his ministrations.

"I didn't know you giggled," Grissom replied, his turn to be amused.

"Giggled?" she echoed dumbfounded.

"Yes," he answered, his grin growing. "You just giggled."

"I don't think so, Grissom."

He repeated the action that had prompted the reaction in the first place, and despite all her best attempts to keep from doing so, Sara did indeed let out another giggle.

"Fine," she conceded, propping herself onto her elbows. "I do giggle from time to time. But don't you ever tire of being right?" she sighed in exasperation.

He only smiled in reply.

It was then that Sara realized that Grissom had been far more preoccupied with watching the way the thin straps of her bra were starting to slide down her arms than anything else. But unlike most of the men she had been with, neither his eyes nor his hands hurried to take in her chest once he had eased the bra off the rest of the way. Instead, he kissed her and pulled her tight to him until they were skin against skin with nothing there to separate them.

Her nails dug into his hair as his mouth trailed a line of heat from her lips to her collar bone and then down her sternum. Her body automatically arched into the feel of the opposing smoothness and roughness of his beard as it brushed against her breasts. The kisses continued down her stomach. When his hands came to rest on her hips, he paused to peer up at her as if asking permission to continue. Sara quickly nodded.

While there had been very little grace and a great deal of fumbling on both their parts to remove her pants, Sara luxuriated in the way his hands caressed her bare legs. Still, she wanted him -- the warmth and reassuring weight of him – closer, so she tugged him back towards her until he settled between her legs. They kissed like this for some time before she breathed, her voice now thick and heady with desire, "You are wearing far too many clothes," before reaching for the button on his trousers.

"Looks like the guys were wrong," she said absently. "But then I always thought you'd be a boxers kind of guy." When he gave her a bemused sort of frown, she added, "Don't worry your secret is safe with me." Sara laughed when Grissom continued to look a bit bewildered and honestly baffled as he tried to figure out how in the world what he wore for underwear had ever managed to come up in polite conversation before Sara's deftly slipping his off rendered the entire exercise a moot point.

Then it was all lips and hands, their touching growing in intensity and fervency.

When they both paused to catch their breath, Grissom leaned in and brushing the hair back behind her ear, breathed, "You are so beautiful," causing Sara to beam with pleasure, not just at his words, but in the way he was looking at her now with almost a sense of awe and wonder. She took his face in her hands and nodded.

*******

Grissom found he possessed no words for it -- the emotions, the sensations, the whole overwhelming nearness of being with Sara like this. And he didn't care. He simply relished in the rush and flush and blush of what lay beyond desire and passion: connection.

Their momentarily awkward rhythm had quickly settled into something almost instinctual and he watched with rapt appreciation the way her dark eyes both deepened and brightened all at once as the pleasure played across her face; felt how her body reacted to each touch and motion. And never had he heard anything as stirring as the gasps and sighs she couldn't quite seem to contain, nor the moans she breathed into his mouth as they kissed.

Her name tumbled from his lips before an overpowering blinding breathlessness came over them both.

*******

While he vaguely protested that he was far too heavy for her, Grissom allowed Sara to draw him to her until he rested against her chest, rested there wrapped in her arms and with the comforting cadence of her heart beating against his ear. She ran her fingers through his hair as they both lay there waiting for breath and pulse to return to normal.

Sara sighed contentedly. After all those years of waiting and wondering, even but in passing (and sometimes more than that), one would have thought that the moment had been so built up, the expectations now so high, that disappointment was bound to be a certainty. Instead, it had proven, despite all the awkwardness or perhaps because of it, a far more satisfying experience than she could ever have imagined.

But then, she mused, when was the last time a man had made love to her in a very literal sense of the words?

Grissom had been gentle with her, adoring, attentive, and cautious, too, as if he still feared hurting her, but this seemed only to add to the intimacy of it, rather than detract from it. Yet it was more than that, Sara had never been with someone who was tender like this, almost to the point of reverence, as if it were her pleasure and not his own, that was most important.

It did feel a little strange, to be loved like that -- with both passion and patience.

She supposed she shouldn't have been surprised that Grissom's passion was very much like the rest of him: quiet, gentle and yet still extraordinarily intense all the same.

"Definitely not overrated," Sara murmured after a while.

"Hmm?" Grissom asked, not quite sure if he had heard her properly.

"You are definitely not overrated," she replied, placing a kiss into his hair.

Grissom knew he probably shouldn't, but he couldn't help but smile into her skin, before pulling her along with him as he laid back onto the blankets. He pulled back the covers and they slipped beneath the sheets. Sara curled up along side him, feeling warm and safe and truth be told, a little sleepy.

When she let out a yawn, he said, his voice warm and rich with his own contentment, "I thought you never slept."

She peered up at him and smiled, "I guess you have that effect on me."

"Boring you already?"

"No."

"Then?" he queried expectantly.

She snuggled a little closer to him and only said, "Goodnight, Gil."

"Good night, Sara," he replied, pleased to note her use of his first name, despite the fact that at a little after 1 p.m., it was far more afternoon than night.

*******

They lay curled up with each other, snug like spoons, her back curled into his chest. Grissom's hand rested protectively on the convex curve of her hip beneath the thin cotton duvet.

While he wasn't sure what had woken him, Grissom was pleased to wake to the unfamiliar feeling of warmth, the warmth of skin on skin and the presence of another in the bed beside him. He had woken up with Sara once before several weeks earlier, but it was different this time, and not because this time they were naked, but because it was the first time he had woken up in his own bed with her, the first time after…

He smiled as he slid his hand over her waist and let it rest on her bare stomach, his splayed fingers drawing himself as close to her as he could get without waking her. He buried his nose deeper into the hollow of her neck and breathed in deep, suddenly surrounded by the scent of her and sweat and the heady musk of lovemaking. She sighed and nestled closer to him, but he didn't want to rouse her, not quite yet.

Then from off in the distance, his cell gave another insistent peal. Part of him wanted to say screw the phone, but he knew that if it was work, they would just continue calling until he picked up and as Sara was sleeping so soundly, he didn't want the continued ringing to wake her.

Gingerly, he eased himself from her side and slipped from the sheets. But he lingered long enough to draw the duvet over her and place a kiss into her hair. He was pleased to see her lips twitch into a smile. His grin only grew when as she stirred and shifted onto her back, a soft, snuffling snore escaped her lips.

He decided to file that particular observation for later.

He hurriedly pulled his bathrobe from off the hook in the master bathroom and padded as quietly as he could into the living room. He pushed _Talk_ on his cell.

From on the other end, Jim Brass vaguely apologized for waking him. Grissom hurriedly dismissed this and took down the details of the page. His heart sank slightly as he did so. Being called in early to work to deal with the dead usually didn't trouble him in the slightest, but it was certainly not the way he really wanted to spend the rest of this particular afternoon, but apparently both Days and Swing were already maxed out, and the call had come in for a rather messy multiple in Seven Hills. The whole shift was being summoned in whether on call or not. Grissom volunteered to phone Sara and Greg if Brass would get a hold of Catherine and Warrick. He signed off with the promise to be in within the hour.

As he started up the coffee pot, he dialed Greg, who was his usual chipper self even at five in the evening. That call made, he put down the phone with a heavy sigh. That just left Sara.

_Sara_, he thought. No, this was certainly not the way pictured the rest of this particular day going. Still, he would have to wake her and soon.

He was in the process of puzzling over something to serve her for breakfast, when Sara materialized on the other side of the kitchen counter, as if it were the most natural thing in the world for her to walk by dressed only in his shirt.

Her voice was still thick with sleep when she said, peering up at the clock, "Coffee at this hour?"

Grissom nodded.

"That can only mean one thing," she sighed. "Brass."

He nodded again, handed her a tall glass of orange juice and proceeded to give her the details of the case in brief.

"Ah," she said after he finished. "So much for you not calling me in."

"I am sorry," he replied and meant it.

"Me, too," she agreed.

"This wasn't exactly how I imagined the rest of the day going," Grissom admitted.

An eyebrow went up at this. "Oh?" Sara asked.

But he did not elucidate any further. She smiled sadly, leaned in and placed a long lingering kiss on his cheek. When she drew away, she found Grissom peering down at her attempting with great difficulty to conceal his amusement.

"What?" she mouthed.

He gestured to the row of misaligned buttons. "You missed half of them. Is this why you hardly ever wear buttons?" he asked and while he had begun to unfasten them if only to do them up properly again, Grissom couldn't resist pausing to rest his hands on her bare hips and pull her close.

She tried hard not to smile, but couldn't help it in the end, though she didn't dignify the question with a response. Instead, she kissed him and asked, "How long before we have to be in?"

He glanced at the clock. "About forty-five minutes."

"Then we've still got fifteen minutes."

"How do you figure that? Don't you need to head home to change?"

She shook her head. "You aren't the only one who keeps a spare change of clothes in the back of their car. Unless you are in a hurry to get rid of me," she teased.

"Hardly. Breakfast?" he asked.

"Normally, I would never turn down your cooking, but I really need a shower."

He nodded and watched her go.

She paused at the doorway and said with a flirtatious tilt of the head, "Are you coming?"


End file.
